A FanGirl Moment

On Friday at the NEC conference, I experienced a total fangirl moment quite by accident!

There were signs all over the hotel parking lot saying that my car would be towed if I was not a hotel guest. Since the conference was less than 30 miles from my home, I decided sleeping in my own bed would be a good thing. But I didn't want my car towed, so I was looking for a hotel employee in the lobby to make sure my wheels would still be there when I was ready for them. I asked a gal standing near the computer kiosks if there was a problem with me parking there.

And as the words were spilling out my mouth, I realized I was talking to LISA GARDNER! "Oh! You don't work here," I said and proceeded to tell her who she was! By this time, I was babbling profusely so I gushed about how I loved her work. She was very gracious and told me no one had asked for any information about her car when she checked in, so she figured mine was safe!

Don't you just love it when people you admire turn out to be as nice as you hoped they were!

On the hunt . . .

It's axiomatic that in the current publishing climate it's just as hard (some would say harder) for a new author to be offered representation by an agent as to find an editor willing to take a chance on a newbie. But that's just what I'm going to be doing this weekend at the New England "Let Your Imagination Take Flight" Conference. The agent of my dreams is attending and I have a pitch appointment.

Condensing 400 pages of sweat and blood into a bite-sized morsel is always a challenge. A hearing-impaired teacher speechreads a "murder-for-hire" contract on an MIT math professor and becomes the target of a serial "accident artist." When she decides to find out why the professor was killed, can she trust the homocide detective, who's also her cheating ex? Or the new man in her life whose secrets mount by the day? Or only herself?

Of course, I want to entice this agent with my story, but I also want to sell her on myself--my ability to consistently produce marketable manuscripts and help promote them as well. Publishing is looking for authors who work and play well with others.

Wish me luck!